Lots of fun clues and neat surfaces from Chifonie. Favourites were 10ac, 11ac, 23ac and 18dn.
Across
7 Outfitter is more flexible when holding interest (8)
SUPPLIER
=”Outfitter”. SUPPLER=”more flexible” around I[nterest]
9 Alice formulated recipe for cake (6)
ECLAIR
=”cake”. (Alice)* plus R[ecipe]
10 Thrilled by pronounced smell (4)
SENT
=”Thrilled”. Sounds like ‘scent’ = “pronounced smell”
11 The nude ran, tumbling on the bottom (10)
UNDERNEATH
=”on the bottom”. (The nude ran)*
12 Books appearing in amusing advert (6)
NOTICE
=”advert”. O[ld] T[estament]=”Books” inside NICE=”amusing”
14 Judge returned hand tool to prospector (8)
EXAMINER
=”Judge”. rev(AXE=”hand tool”) plus MINER=”prospector”
15 Earnest doctor teased (6)
SEDATE
=”Earnest”. (teased)*
17 Cash conversion (6)
CHANGE
=”Cash”; =”conversion”
20 Protect Penny’s modesty (8)
PRESERVE
=”Protect”. P[enny] plus RESERVE=”modesty”
22 Found ecstasy in container (6)
CREATE
=”Found” as in establish. E[cstasy] inside CRATE=”container”
23 Uproar during address for investiture (10)
ORDINATION
=”investiture”. DIN=”Uproar” inside ORATION=”address”
24 Contradict Yankee after study (4)
DENY
=”Contradict”. Y[ankee] from the phonetic alphabet, plus DEN=”study” as in a room
25 See Charlie wearing revolutionary hat (6)
CLOCHE
=”hat”. LO!=”See!” plus C[harlie], all inside CHE=”revolutionary”
26 Boss’s unfeeling complaint (4,4)
HEAD COLD
=”complaint”. HEAD=”Boss” plus COLD=”unfeeling”
Down
1 Many fancy our menus (8)
NUMEROUS
=”Many”. (our menus)*
2 Little bit of jam (4)
SPOT
=”Little bit of”; =”jam” as in ‘a spot of bother’
3 Speechless about batting a short time (6)
MINUTE
=”a short time”. MUTE=”Speechless” plus IN=”batting” in cricket
4 Censure salesman over fish (8)
REPROACH
=”Censure”. REP=”salesman” plus ROACH=”fish”
5 Fidelity, for example, is required in marriage (10)
ALLEGIANCE
=”Fidelity”. E.G.=”for example”, inside ALLIANCE=”marriage”
6 Strive to keep right, united in integrity (6)
VIRTUE
=”integrity”. VIE=”strive” around both RT=”right” (as in the Rt Honourable etc) and U[nited]
8 Soldiers consider rescue (6)
REDEEM
=”rescue”. R[oyal] E[ngineers]=”Soldiers” plus DEEM=”consider”
13 Obscure urge to embrace little girl (10)
INDISTINCT
=”Obscure”. INSTICT=”urge” around DI[ana]=”little girl”
16 Stands at the game to see Queen in shadows (8)
TERRACES
=”Stands at the game”. E[lizabeth] R[egina]=”Queen” inside TRACES=”shadows”
18 Catch ten fresh fish (8)
ENTANGLE
=”Catch”. (ten)* plus ANGLE=”fish”
19 Queen’s priest’s hard to like (6)
RELISH
=”like”. R[egina]=”Queen” plus (‘s implies ‘has’) ELI’S=”priest’s” plus H[ard]
21 Artists bank hardly ever (6)
RARELY
=”hardly ever”. R[oyal] A[cademy]=”Artists” plus RELY=”bank”
22 Campaign endlessly for painting (6)
CANVAS
=”for painting”. CANVAS[s]=”Campaign endlessly”
24 Tie up weed (4)
DOCK
=”Tie up”; =”weed”
*anagram
A pretty straightforward puzzle I thought, and with rather a lot of crossword cliches, which made it seem a little ‘stale’ to me. I am sure that there are dictionaries that define ‘nice’ as ‘amusing’ and ‘traces’ as ‘shadows’, but I did not feel comfortable with them, though the solutions were fairly apparent.
Thanks Chifonie and manihi
A Monday puzzle on Wednesday! Over Christmas I recommended Chifone to a couple of friends to introduce them to the Guardian crossword as relative beginners – this one would have been perfect for them and I hope you did it Beth and Trav !!!
Sheer laziness resulted in me not parsing ALLEGIANCE fully …
Too easy, even for a Monday puzzle – perhaps a contender for inclusion in the “Guardian Cryptic Crosswords for Beginners”.
15a – Sedate=Earnest was a bit of stretch.
22d is just feeble.
Thanks, manehi.
Very straightforward puzzle with a lot of container clues.
I was held up briefly by 22a and 22d with their unhelpful crossers, not helped by CANVAS(s) not really being synonymous with ‘campaign’.
Thanks Chifonie and Manehi. Some nice things here, but on the whole I agree with the above coments. A bit easy for a Wednesday with some weak ‘synonyms’. Perhaps tomorrow will redress the balance.
On what planet can “nice” mean “amusing”? And in what way is “earnest” equivalent to “sedate”? Things like this really bother me. The clue should define the words needed…and that shouldn’t be sacrificed for the sake of a nice (or even amusing) surface reading.
I was especially bothered by sedate–I came up with that possibility long before I entered it, but discarded it as not fitting the bill. It was therefore my LOI.
Hi mrpenney & others
Some synonyms from Chambers Thesaurus:
nice: … lovely, good, delightful, satisfying, acceptable, pleasurable, fine, appealing, amusing, entertaining, …
sedate: staid, dignified, solemn, grave, stiff, serious, earnest, sober, proper, …
Don’t think you meant INSTICT 🙂
Well I found it nice in the fullest senses of the word.
BTW – many possible examples of ‘nice’ as ‘amusing’ – for example, “I read a nice piece the other day about the dearth of umbrellas in Cherbourg” – a phrase I have often used.
Ha ha – nice one, polyphone!
Thanks, Chifonie & manehi.
Chambers Thesaurus notwithstanding, I’m with mrpenney re sedate/earnest. I can’t imagine a sentence where those words could be interchangeable. Is it possible “sedate” has a broader range of meanings in the UK than in the US? To the point, compare the entries for sedate in Collins English Thesaurus vs. its American Thesaurus:
English: sedate = calm, collected, quiet, seemly, serious, earnest, cool, grave, proper, middle-aged, composed, sober, dignified, solemn, serene, tranquil, placid, staid, demure, unflappable (informal), unruffled, decorous, imperturbable
American: sedate = calm, collected, composed, cool, dignified, serene, tranquil
I’m reminded of one of my favorite plays, The Importance of Being Sedate…
Thanks manehi and chifonie
Nice and pretty trouble free except for the SE corner, where 24d ‘dock’ held me up a little. I had thought the answer might be ‘draw’ but unsurprisingly could not see how ‘ward’ = “weed’!
2d might also be parsed as ‘s(mall) pot’ but it is of course basically a dd.
I found some of the synonyms a little tenuous as well, although if they’re in the Chambers Thesaurus then I shouldn’t quibble. I found this mostly very straightforward, but was held up at the end by NOTICE and CANVAS, and then more inexplicably the SUPPLIER/SPOT crossers.
One thing I never understand about crosswords is the “apostrophe S” used so often in clues.
I can just about get “Boss’s unfeeling” if “Head Cold” is thought of as a headline in a newspaper (HEAD COLD = Boss is unfeeling).
But why is RELI “Queen’s priest”? Surely it could only be “Queen priest”.
Could someone please help me…am I missing something?
…likewise “Penny’s modesty” = P RESERVE
Hi Limeni@14
In chess, isn’t king’s pawn = KP, the position QN4 referring to queen’s knight 4, etc.
Thanks all
Am I fooling myself or have I been held up three times this week by the NW corner. Is it the Man.U. curse.
agree with some of the comments here about weak synonyms. And in that connection I’ve never seen associated words in the thesaurus as implying true synonyms. In particular didn’t really like sent for thrilled – I’m certainly only familiar with it in in this context in the phrase “heaven sent”. But agreed otherwise v straightforward.
In answer to Limeni @14 Queen’s could presumably be Reginae, though I can’t think of an instance where R is taken to mean that in shortened form. Maybe someone else can.
This was only straightforward if one accepted that the setter gives god awful definitions.
I spent far too long trying to justify sedate=earnest and nice=amusing.
Pretty poor even for a Monday! Wait a minute! What day is it again?
Thanks to manehi and Chifonie
By the way I’m still looking for the “fun clues and neat surfaces”!!!!
There seems to be a surprising amount of of negativity here. I finished it fairly quickly in my lunch break and didn’t think anything was worth commenting on at the time, and I felt it was straightforward enough to need the few words used in obscure senses to create a sense of being challenged, so at least the likes of nice and sedate were educational for some of us. I agree with morpheus @18 that sent = thrilled comes into the same category, though I’m sure I’ve that in used in crosswords before.
Thanks to Chifonie and manehi
I agree with morpheus @18 that a thesaurus is a compilation of groups of semantically related words and certainly not a straightforward listing of synonyms.
Limeni @14/15: This is a device which sadly is quite common – ‘Queen’s priest’ needs to be interpreted as ‘Queen HAS priest’ and not ‘Queen is priest’. I’ve voiced my dislike of this ad nauseam: my complaint is that ‘has’ is not abbreviated to ‘apostrophe s’ when it denotes possession, only when it is used as an auxiliary verb (in standard English, at any rate – other posters have suggested it’s quite common in certain dialects, but it’s not customary to use dialectal grammar in crosswords without flagging it up as non-standard). We would normally say ‘John has a dog’ or ‘John’s got a dog’ (where the ‘has’ becomes an auxiliary verb) and not abbreviate it to ‘John’s a dog’ because this would be interpreted as ‘John IS a dog’.
I would just add that synonyms are synonyms, and if you think they’re weak you should complain to Ms, Mrs or Mr Thesaurus, and not to the setter. Or to the crossword editor, for allowing such far-fetched and incontiguous selections. Pelham over the way, of course, complains when meanings are too close. Gah.
Setters are dogs, and should be stroked.
@16. Nearly, but not quite. During a game, in the traditional English notation Pawns were not called anything other than P because only one pawn could make the indicated move, eg P-K4. However, in associated text one might use KP to say “the KP is too exposed”. So, you’re OK that far. But then you’ve mixed notations. In the old system it would be QKt4, in the modern system it would be b4 for white or b5 for black. N would be used in a move such as Nc3, and in text “the QN is….”.
Thanks bruceW, Morpheus and Gervase for coming to my aid.
“Queen HAS priest” does make a kind of sense to me (even though I agree with your reservations), so I will think of it as that from now on. Thank you.
re: Synonyms – for me, when the ‘Definition Part’ of the clue is truly joyful and satisfying is not when the synonym is needlessly obscure, but rather when it is a common usage but misleadingly disguised. 22ac in this crossword is a great example – Found = CREATE. Lovely.
@16 & @24
Chess has no relevance to the ‘s controversy.
@16 “king’s pawn = KP” In annotation, and conversation, “king pawn” is as common.
@24 “Pawns were not called anything other than P because…”
1P-Q4,P-Q4 2P-QB4,P-K3 3N-QB3,P-QB4 4BPxP is the Queen’s Gambit Declined. Often referred as the QGD.
The only part descriptive chess notation plays in crosswords is for P,K,Q,B,N or R. I’ve never seen algebraic in a crossword, though it is dominant in the game itself.
In a crossword ‘s may indicate a possessive, anagram fodder, is or has literally, and controversially is or has as a connector or surface embellishment.
Well Limeni, stay out of the surface when you parse: some people don’t, and it contributes to their pain, it seems to me.
RELISH is R (has) ELI(‘)S/ H, and you like it or you don’t.
Re synonyms hear hear, but they are still WHAT they are in tomes. HOW they’re used? Well, now you’re talking art.
Gaufrid @7
I don’t think thesauruses are good authorities for crosswords. They have lots of synonyms but so much more besides.
They’re more to do with association of ideas.
You can go to Roget for a better way of saying something and find something better to say. The word you started with, though related to what you find, is not close enough in meaning to qualify as a synonym. Better has different meanings.
Collins on-line dictionary gives synonyms. traces/shadows and campaign/canvass are there. earnest/sedate and nice/amusing are not. Roget doesn’t give any in the index though no doubt connections are somewhere in the body.
Collins is a bit odd in that sometimes the entry for one word will give another as a synonym but the entry for the other does not give the first. And I find some meanings rather far from nearly the same.
I’m not happy if I can’t think of a sentence where I can inter-substitute the two words without more than a slight change of meaning.
@9 polyphone’s “I read a nice piece…” doesn’t work in general, it depends on the piece.
Nice word “nice”. I could say more but that would be going off-topic. Or rambling if you prefer.
Chambers Crossword Dictionary gives amusing as a synonym of nice (but not the other way around) and earnest as a synonym of sedate (but not the other way around).
I don’t know what, if anything, this signifies.
Nothing at all in Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary.